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How to close a top bar hive using a steel rod

Hello, I made a video showing how to close a top bar hive with a steel rod. I have been doing it for a while now and it really cuts down on the wasted time (and bee stings) associated with trying to close the hive. You could also use a steel bar or even a piece of wood ripped to 1/8, but the steel rod is inexpensive and easily found at Home Depot. Take a look:

Re: How to close a top bar hive using a steel rod

Saw this on another forum and gave it a go in a friends hive we were working. Talk about a time saver! Its really an obvious solution to the problem of replacing top bars and like so many obvious answers, it was not so obvious till someone showed you

Re: How to close a top bar hive using a steel rod

Re: How to close a top bar hive using a steel rod

I had some sheet metal laying around that I had used a few times, but found it bulky and annoying to use. Saw this topic and figured that it'd be cumbersome, but the video makes it look so easy. Will have to get one or find something in the garage that will mimic this. Great idea!

Re: How to close a top bar hive using a steel rod

I call this The Bee-Down Strip. I use a framing square, or a strip of wood myself. It does work well, but I find that the more I work a hive, the fast I get, and rarely need them anymore. I find I tend now to be more focused on closing space behind me, before the bees get boiling up, and when they do, I just use smoke across the top bars and then dive back down.

The Bee-Down strip is really useful when they're really upset, though. Because then they are harder to get down, and you can get them down and closed pretty quickly.

Re: How to close a top bar hive using a steel rod

I have had a top bar this entire summer and never had a problem with the bees staying between the bars until the other day. but yeah, what a pain. I thought I woudl never get it back together. Tryed smoking,feathering you name it and the bees where just stubborn about staying there. Thanks for the tip.

Re: How to close a top bar hive using a steel rod

Sounds like some top bar keepers are making it more difficult than it should be. I simply replace bars by gradually lowering them back into their places, as the bottom edge of the bar being replaced approaches the top edge of the adjacent bar, I wiggle it and gradually lower it until the bees move out of the way (which happens almost immediately), then once they are, I lower the bar into its position -- this usually take about 15-20 seconds. I almost never catch a single bee where it gets injured or killed.

Re: How to close a top bar hive using a steel rod

Originally Posted by Joseph Clemens

Sounds like some top bar keepers are making it more difficult than it should be. I simply replace bars by gradually lowering them back into their places, as the bottom edge of the bar being replaced approaches the top edge of the adjacent bar, I wiggle it and gradually lower it until the bees move out of the way (which happens almost immediately), then once they are, I lower the bar into its position -- this usually take about 15-20 seconds. I almost never catch a single bee where it gets injured or killed.

That technique seems to work really well when the bees draw out even comb, but the problem I noticed is that when there are uneven parts of the comb bees can get pinched and rolled between the frames if you scissor them together like that. Maybe my problem is getting them to draw nice comb.

Re: How to close a top bar hive using a steel rod

What you say sounds right. I grew about 30 TBH nucs this season, and only had 100% flat, parallel combs, so uneven combs were not an issue. I can visualize how uneven comb surfaces, especially wavy combs could present some challenges. Though with irregular combs, wouldn't even the 'steel rod' technique be difficult, the irregular combs would roll/smash bees even then.

I use top bars with straight wooden comb guides. I pre-start the combs for each TBH between brood combs in already established colonies, which themselves already have straight combs. Sometimes, if they begin building drone comb, where I don't want drone comb, I pull it off and let them start again, but usually they change to worker cells on their next try. It often only takes a day or two before they've built the beginnings of nice, straight combs. I then gently shake all the bees from the 'started' combs, put them together in their own box, then select an already established colony, move their queen to the new top bars, then shake all the workers over too. If there isn't a flow on I will push a parallel crack between a pair of top bars, 1/4" wide, then place an inverted quart feeder of 1:1 and a very small pollen sub patty, to cover this crack. If this causes the comb surfaces, adjacent to the crack to be drawn out too far I carefully cut them down a little to avoid bee smush, before pushing the back together. It sounds complicated, but has worked well, so far.